Brothers
by A Cup O' Joe
Summary: A drabble, basically. Focusing more on Ace, Sabo, and Luffy. Updates will be sporadic.
1. Chapter 1

Ace scowled angrily, pulling himself out of the puddle of mud. Over to his left, Luffy looks up and asks with innocent eyes:

"Why did you jump into the mud?" To which Ace responds with an irritated retort of "Shut up." Sabo snickers over to his right, Ace shooting him a glare.

He hadn't _meant_ to fall into that puddle of mud, of course. They'd finished bathing only a few minutes before, and he wouldn't do that voluntarily unless he wanted to sleep with mud splattered all over him. Ace didn't exactly want to get eaten by giant forest monsters while washing himself; it was beginning to get dark.

"Stupid tree root," Ace muttered, glancing at a tree root too far away from the mud to have been the cause of his fall. "Making me trip..."

Sabo, trying his best to stifle his laughter, looked over to Luffy as the rubber boy spoke up once again.

"But, Ace," he started, slight confusion in his dark, wide eyes. "Didn't you jump?"

That was it. Not being able to hold back his embarrassed blush, utter annoyance in his expression, Ace glared at both Luffy and Sabo- the latter of the pair in hysterics- and pushed both into the large puddle of mud behind them.

"Damn it," Sabo muttered, smiling as he looked at Luffy who was grinning as well.

As they continued on their way home, all three of them covered in mud, the thought of how grateful he was to have his two brothers crossed Ace's mind. It was a fleeting thought, as he soon took interest into the giant beetle Luffy had found, but it was there. While they weren't related by blood, nothing could break the strong bond the trio had.

Although, as they passed a large tree, they knew they were just about dead when they felt the presence of a certain marine with his Fist of Love looming over them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry this took so long. I procrastinated. I do have another one that I will (hopefully) post soon, though. At least this one is longer than the last one. Enjoy.**

They were eating food. Yep, that was basically it. However, if you looked close enough, you could see it wasn't just any food. The weren't eating at just _any_ place.

In fact, they were eating ramen once more. They weren't at the same place where they previously ate ramen, as they'd be recognized pretty quickly (who could forget that), but the quality was still good, if not better.

Sabo, finishing his third bowl -they hadn't been there for quite that long- noticed his brothers were finished as well and ordered even more. This continued for a while, the rushed footsteps of the waitress frantically climbing up and down the stairs. Imean, at least she gets a nice workout.

As the three brothers lost count of how many bowls of ramen they consumed, the stomach of the youngest growing almost alarmingly bigger with each bowl, Ace and Sabo decided that it was enough and the size of the rubber boy could be hazardous to their escape. The classic Dine-and-Dash.

Soon enough, like all of their other attempts to eat out, the exhausted waitress found out that their very hungry customer was actually a trio of you boys with no intention of paying. At that, Ace and Sabo ran to the window, Luffy (who was basically a huge ball by then) in tow, to escape the waiting wrath of whoever the woman was fetching.

The two older boys jumped out first, trying to pull out Luffy who was... Yeah.

He was stuck.

Shit.

A gasp was heard in the doorway of the room they were trying to escape from, as well as the yell of a woman. Neither of the two outside the room knew what was going on, only being able to see a blob with clothing, as well as a stream of curses coming from one of three voices.

Unable to process what was happening, they both ran downstairs ones more to get the guards. Ace and Sabo's pulling grew more frantic, seeing as the people outside the fancy restaurant were staring and calling for even more guards to take care of the dirty "scum" at the window.

"This wasn't a good idea..." Sabo said to himself, grunting as one of Luffy's feet hit him in the face.

"You think?!" Ace retorted.

With one last pull from each boy, Luffy unexpectedly popped out, just as the guards arrived at the door. Fortunately, both older brothers landed on the younger who was looking sick by then. Luffy, groaning, was picked up by his two siblings before they ran across the street to evade the rest of the guards, who, at that point, were left in a heap on the ground.

"Let's not do this again," Sabo suggested.

"Yeah. Let's not."

* * *

Eventually, the brothers returned to their treehouse. Luffy, who had returned to his normal size by then,was payed on the blankets and pillows where they slept. As his position suggests, he was asleep.

It had already gotten dark by the time the trio got home, and the younger had both older brothers laying on either side of him. They were trying to sleep as well.

The setting was peaceful before the calming quiet was interrupted by a light laugh coming from Sabo.

"What is it?" Ace asked, perplexed as Sabo grinned.

"You should have seen your face when we suddenly fell from the window," Sabo responded as quietly as he could, trying to muffle the rest of his laughter.

"Shut up."


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello, everyone. This is really, really late, I know. Sorry. I hope you enjoy this, although I'll be fixing it up later because this is a shortened and edited piece that I'm using for our last English grade in my English class. Nobody know's it's fanfciction, though, I tried to keep it as vague as possible. (I'm only doing this now because I'm in English class and this is actually the only chance I'll get to use a laptop for now.)**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoy. I don't know when I'll get the chance to add on to this, because it's supposed to be a bit longer, and I'm kind of proud of it. I'll see you guys later.**

 **P.S. Sorry about all of the errors in the previous part, I'll try to fix that. This is why you shouldn't upload your stories on a tablet, it's a huge pain. It's** ** _also_** **why I'm doing this now instead of at home. Ah, no, the A/N is getting too long, sincere apologies. Enjoy the new part, if you will.**

The words " _die"_ and " _devil's son"_ weren't new to him. While they were said indirectly, the words were always towards him. Even if nobody knew that.

And then, there're the questions he'd constantly ask himself, "Do I deserve to live? Should I have been born?"

When he asked Gramps, Gramps just got angry and said yes; he did deserve to live. "A child should not take the blame for the sins of his father," he continued, adding that the man in question is one of which he should have great respect for.

He wasn't sure he could believe that.

It was true, he was the devil's son. His father was a "bad guy", a criminal, and everyone he asked would say the same terrible things.

"If he had a son," they started, "he should die for having that demon's blood in him."

However, there were two more people who were brought into this equation; his brothers.

The three of them had a bond that was unbreakable. They had even exchanged a toast of sake, because they were told it would make them brothers. Brothers in all but blood.

He was hesitant to tell them about his father. Would they hate him? Be disgusted, because they had become brothers with the spawn of the devil?

They didn't care. Not at all. "Ace was Ace," they said, and that was all they cared about.

He was close to tears, and that was the happiest he had been in a long time.

His brothers wouldn't be able to change his opinion on his father. He would still hate the man and his name. But, maybe, just maybe…

Maybe he _did_ deserve to live.


End file.
